


A Studio for Three

by storywriter8



Series: Wizards and Werewolves and Wind Oh My! [23]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Burning a Guitar, Eliot Spencer Angst, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e06 The Studio Job, Missing Scene, Not Beta Read, Pining, Proud Hardison, Proud Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28663500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storywriter8/pseuds/storywriter8
Summary: Parker and Hardison insists that Eliot play one more song for them.
Series: Wizards and Werewolves and Wind Oh My! [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1157621
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	A Studio for Three

**Author's Note:**

> oh you lucky readers you, I actually posted both of these before going to bed.
> 
> I don't own Dreams by Brandi Carlile, its just a good song.

Eliot hummed softly as he strummed the cords of the guitar Kaye Lynn had insisted he keep. Insisted that he promise to keep playing, even if his path had long taken him away from even being able to follow the music it promised.

“You ready for that talk yet?” Hardison asked, surprising the hitter who had been too absorbed in the music to hear his approach,

“Dammit, Hardison,” Eliot growled with no real heat behind his words as he turned to look over his shoulder at the hacker.

Hardison had that look on his stupid face again, that look of smug pride that he secretly, and not so secretly, wore whenever he found something behinds hitting that Eliot was good at. A look he incorrectly believed that Eliot didn’t know the meaning of, because he was sure that the hitter would beat it off his face if he knew. But he didn’t know everything.

Didn’t know the warmth that spread through Eliot's chest when he saw that look, saw that someone was proud of him for making instead of destroying.

“I ain’t paranoid,” Eliot said, loudly spelling it out for the hacker.

Giving a loud but defeated sigh, Hardison rolled his eyes dramatically as Parker bounded up beside him and handed him a bundle of cloth. “You know, just because there's a price on your head in like a bajillion counties, doesn’t mean you have to push away any and all acknowledgment of your awesomeness.”

“What?” Eliot asked, frowning in bewilderment as both Hardison and Parker took off their shirts. “The hell are you doing?”

Neither answered as they tugged on the matching shirts that Parker had painstakingly spent the last four hours making. They were a horrible neon green color with a rather unflattering photo of Eliot's ‘dammit Hardison’ face screen printed across the chest and the words ‘number 1 fan’ written below in multicolored sharpie.

Hardison cleared his throat and Parker did some very intense faced warm up stretches. Then they both squealed at the tops of their voices, leaping over couches to fall to their knees in front of Eliot and gush like the fan girls that had chanced the hitter just a few days prior.

“Oh my Ge Oh S H! It’s really you!”

“Oh wow you are like, SO hot.”

“You gotta sign my chest! Oh my friends are going to be so jealous!”

“I can't believe we are meeting THE Eliot!”

“Your voice is like SOOO sexy”

“Will you sing us a song Mr Sexy?”

“Yeah, sing a song for your number one fans!”

“We love you so much!! AAARGGGG!”

“Stooop!” Eliot wailed, holding his sides as he gasped through his laughter, “You're killin’ me!”

This only encouraged the pair to step up their antics until all three were splayed across the floor in helpless giggles.

Finally able to catch his breath, Eliot slowly pushed himself off the floor, quickly shoving a hand over Parker’s mouth as her eyes lit up with even more mischief. “I’ll sing you a damn song if you shut up,” Eliot relented, shaking his head but still smiling.

Retrieving his guitar, the hitter plucked a few cords, considering the songs he knew and which the pair sitting dutifully in front of him would enjoy.

Unbidden, his heart chose for him, reaching up and moving his fingers to play the first few notes of Dreams. He played the song slower than Brandi Carlile, swallowing down the lump in his throat to sing her words to the quiet apartment

"Dreams, I have dreams, when I'm awake, when I'm asleep."

"And you," he sang softly, eyes flickering up for a moment to glance between the hacker and thief, "you are in my dreams. You're underneath my skin, how am I so weak."

So weak that he would risk letting his heart be seen in this soft moment sitting between the people he was falling for.

"And now in my dreams, I can feel the weight, I can just come clean."

Swallowed hard as his fingers moved faster over the strings of the guitar, Eliot squeezed his eyes shut and sang on. "I keep it to myself! I know what it means. I can't have you, but I have dreams."

Neither Hardison nor Parker spoke as Eliot sang his breaking heart out with his eyes firmly shut and trusting his hands to find the cords. 

"I can't have you," Eliot murmured, his voice fading as the song and moment drew to a close. "But I have dreams, I have dreams. I have, I have, I have dreams."

The final notes of the song hung in the still air slowly fading away as Eliot kept his eyes closed. The fight was over, his walls rebuilt, feelings repressed. 

"Eliot," Hardison whispered, something soft and painful in his voice.

"There's no such thing as paranoia," Eliot snapped, shoving himself to his feet and storming past his friends, "When you've done the things I've done!"

Slamming the apartment door behind him, Eliot leaned heavily against it and fought to keep tears from spilling down his cheeks. Shoving away and stumbling down stairs to the empty bar, the hitter wrenched the door to the small fireplace, set into the bar’s back wall, open and shoved the guitar in. The dying embers leapt to life around the thin wood of the instrument, quickly consuming it and leaving nothing but melted strings and abandoned dreams. 

Headless of the two sets of tear filled eyes watching him, Eliot turned away from what he had burned and walked out into the cold night air.

**Author's Note:**

> WOW THAT GOT ANGSTY AT THE END! Opps ; )


End file.
